Translation Party: [U-C – GotWoot – Doki – Mazui] Denpa Onna

You know, sometimes my opinion isn’t enough. But how about some objectivity? In this post, I compare each group’s translations. Four groups. Which has the worst translation? Well, I think that’s gonna be pretty obvious, but the call’s up to you.

Of course, you should note that I’m biased toward GotWoot, so take that into consideration when checking these comparisons as well. I probably cherry-picked the lines.

Group 1: Much like the protagonist in a high school drama,Group 2: Like one of those protagonists in high school dramas,Group 3: Now I get to experience the old drama cliché where,Group 4: It’s just how it often happens in school life stories.

Group 1: For a second year high school student in the prime of his adolescent and rebellious age, who earns a minuscule allowance with but little pride, this is the perfect opportunity for him and his exploits.Group 2: An enthralling environment that will strip a rebellious 11th grader of his meager allowance and what little pride he has.Group 3: An environment that can snatch a rebellious teenage second-year boy’s tiny allowance and cheap pride right through his nose!Group 4: This will be the ultimate evil environment that lets a second-year high school boy in his rebellious years live out his little pride and spend all his money.

Group 1: Grown-ups wish for young adolescent boys to grow up properly, and that wish never comes true.Group 2: So much for the proper upbringing that parents wish for their adolescent sons.Group 3: The grownup wish of cultivating wholesome young men will never come true.Group 4: After all, what the adults call the “ideal, healthy adolescence” is pretty much impossible.

Group 1: It sounds like a stage name, a hostess name, a ring name used in high stake events, or even a name that a character would use for her inner persona if she had a split personality.Group 2: Is it a stage name, trade name, ring name, or an alias? It’s unlikely, but it could also be a pseudonym for your alternate personality.Group 3: Is that your stage name, hostess-name, alias or ring name? Of course, it could always be your pseudonym for the alternative character inside you in this world.Group 4: It sounds like a stage name or a trade name. A popular name, or the name of a palette swapped character. Like a jackpot! Or the fictious name of a game character in our world.

Group 1: The city seems filled with the smell of metal.Group 2: Everything in the city seems to be made of steel.Group 3: The city is all steel buildings…Group 4: The city looks like a million dollars.

Group 1: Could she be someone who believes in aliens? A first contact MMR generation fan?Group 2: Could she be an alien fanatic or even an MMR conspiracy theorist?Group 3: Is she an Area 51 conspiracy theorist? Part of the generation swept by MMR?Group 4: An alien fangirl? Is she from theNgeneration hit hard by the MMR vaccine?

Group 1: I didn’t say that just so we could debate about science and the occult over dinner.Group 2: I didn’t bring this up to discuss science and spirituality over dinner.Group 3: I didn’t bring this up to talk about the horizons of the scientific and the spiritual!Group 4: Don’t say these things from the edge of science and spiritual just like that during dinner!

Group 1: This is like trying to grow taller while fasting{fscx400}-{r} You’re making me angry!
My, that is amazing. You must have gone through much strenuous stomach training.Group 2: I’m so far past hungry now that I’m all fed up!
You must have endured for so long that you got a stomach cramp!Group 3: My stomach was growling. I try to phrase things a little nicely, and I get this!
It must be full of enough effort to give you stomach cramps.Group 4: I haven’t eaten anything, but I’m getting pissed already!
Be careful not to get stomach cramps, okay?

Group 1: Even if you do something bad, you can just get away with it because you’re young.Group 2: Your adolescence means people will encourage you to be enthusiastic.Group 3: No matter how much you rush, you can just attribute it to youthfulness.Group 4: If one were to summarize youth in one phrase, it would be “a time spent in love”.

Group 1: That was the fourth case of physical contact, so the defence mechanism activated.Group 2: That was classified as a level-4 hostile contact, and activated my defensive mechanism.Group 3: That was my defense mechanisms reacting to Level 4 invasive contact.Group 4: You just displayed a defensive reaction against what would have been a direct hit.

Group 1: Now that the main body’s consciousness and will have been lost, the public observations committee will not allow you to touch me so carelessly.Group 2: Members of the self-unaware, mindless herd of subjects under observation are not permitted to touch me.Group 3: Natives under observation with no awareness of their own cognition or consciousness cannot be allowed to touch me.Group 4: I can’t allow a senseless observer to touch me just like that after ignoring my conscience and my essence.

Group 1: Your translation abilities are amazing.Group 2: Your translation skills are godly, given the condition that one doesn’t listen to what’s being said.Group 3: Your mastery of translation is at a level at which you might as well not have heard anything she said.Group 4: Your translation is great, as long as one doesn’t even try to listen to the original.

I removed the names because I didn’t want people to make judgments based on preconceived notions about the quality of the groups. But here’s what each group corresponds to:

Group 1: The city seems filled with the smell of metal.
Group 2: Everything in the city seems to be made of steel.
Group 3: The city is all steel buildings…
Group 4: The city looks like a million dollars.

“Group 2: I’m so far past hungry now that I’m all fed up!
You must have endured for so long that you got a stomach cramp!” <- Finally! I'm glad to see this line make some kind of sense, for once. Thank you, GotWoot.

btw, I think Doki is being misrepresented in that last one. I don't remember them screwing up the line THAT bad! lol

I see. If I’m reading your explanation right, it was a pun, and only one other group seemed to get it. Now I get the true brilliance of “fed up” in the line. I had noticed it, but I didn’t really pay that much attention to it before. It’s amazing that, even though an idiot like me didn’t realize it was supposed to be a pun, the line still made more sense than the other groups. Bravo, good sir.

Also, maybe I wasn’t clear in my other post, but the Doki line I was talking about was that last one, “Your translation abilities are amazing.” I was pointing it out because it made Doki look like a joke in comparison to the others. I’m pretty sure Dark_Sage just left the next sentence out by mistake. If it was intentional though, then just ignore me.

Well given the fact that you are releasing a whole week after the episode aired gives you one whole week to work on perfecting the translation and editing by referencing other group’s mistakes, so obviously you’re bound to have the best translation.

I’m gonna go with Mazui. Their editing feels more natural, like something you would actually hear during a normal conversation.

Personally, I consider dialogue flow to be an important factor in any good script, right next to editing. Translation is important too, but since I only know as much Japanese as your average weaboo, as long as the script is grammatically correct, has good phrasing and flow really well, it’s all good.

Doki, as usual, baffles me with their choice of words and phrasing. Sometimes, I find it hard to believe their editing is actually in English. Yeah, I know they say they’re using British English, but I always find their scripts really weird and awkward.

GotWoot? Really stiff. Feels more like a book reading rather than a conversation. There’s really nothing wrong with the subs. It just feels dull and lifeless.

Commie? IMHO, they really should think about changing their editor. Maybe the one working on their Maria Holic Alive? They did an excellent work on that one, actually.

“I removed the names because I didn’t want people to make judgments based on preconceived notions about the quality of the groups.”

You should probably remove them from the introductory paragraph as well. Somehow I automatically assumed the order up above was the same as the lines later on, and that you used “Group #” for easier reading (or just so that the beginning of the translated lines align with each other). Either way, I connected the numbers and names correctly from the get-go, which sort off ruins the intended effect. :P

If you went to Jr. High, it’s still 2nd year. Either way, 11th grader is better than “2nd year” because it’s second year of what? Lengthy “2nd year in high school/second-year high school student” for 2 words makes no sense from a TL’s standpoint.

Also, this is less vague, because it sure beats being mistaken for “grade 10” for those in US. It’s their 11th year of mandatory schooling, and they are around 17 years old, not 16.

I generally appreciate these kinds of comparisons, but I believe this show presents a unique challenge in that it has such a distinctive point of view or sense of humor –a flavor, more so than most shows. A translation which retains the continuity of that quirky point of view, or flavor, throughout the dialogues I think will work, even if individual statements seem awkward. So all groups get a pass from me on this. Or rather, an incomplete.

Off the top of my head, I can’t think of another anime title I would have said this about.